


Book 1: Incite Infinity

by EliannaStark24



Series: Across the Multiverse [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But only a little, F/M, Multiverse Travel, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pepper Potts & OC - Freeform, Rating May Change, Series Retold, Tony Stark & OC - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2020-10-27 07:01:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20756270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EliannaStark24/pseuds/EliannaStark24
Summary: Hello everyone and welcome!Meet Elianna Myers, a seemingly average girl from our universe gets transported across the multiverse into the world of the MCU. She has a mission. Help the Avengers stop Thanos.Her first task is to help the hero that has already saved the world from Thanos once before. Tony Stark.Can she succeed in helping her favorite hero in his darkest hour?





	1. Chapter 1: Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or any of the characters featured in this story.

My name is Elianna Myers, but you can just call me Elia for short. What do you need to know about me? Not much really, I'll explain the important bits as we go. But for now, at the beginning of this story I was your average 22-year-old. Recent college grad, with no clear direction of where she wanted to go in life. But that's all really boring and only plays a small role in the story I’m about to tell you. Speaking of said story, I’m about to share with you the last day I spent as a normal person, or as close as I ever was to normal. Now bear with me, because I know it’s hard to believe. After this day, the level of crazy in my life goes up to 11. And you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing.

Now let’s see, if I remember correctly it all began…

…

As soon as the credits began to roll on the screen, a young woman stands and quickly makes her way out of the theater. She thrusts her hand into her purse in a desperate bid to find her sunglasses. Eyes that are normally a stormy grey-blue are red and tear-swollen. _I cried like a baby_, Elia thinks to herself as she pushes open the doors to exit the theater. The sunlight was a painful jolt to Elia’s eyes despite the sunglasses she had finally managed to place on the bridge of her nose. Her shoulder-length golden blonde hair whips violently across her face and she roughly brushes it back into place. Huffing in exasperation, she walks briskly across the parking lot towards her car.

“It was a pretty good end to an era, all things considered,” Elia mumbles to herself. Her throat felt thick from crying and her voice sounded hoarse and ragged. Opening her car door, she falls into her driver seat and carelessly throws her purse over onto the passenger side. Now alone with her thoughts, Elia’s mind couldn’t help but drift back to the movie she had just stormed out of. So many details in the film could have been different and made just as big an impact.

One thing that has always bothered her is the way Tony Stark’s character has been handled. He’s always been everyone’s punching bag, he’s always cleaning up after everyone else’s messes. Tony took beating after beating, both verbal and physical, and brushed it all off with snark, sarcasm, and a million-watt playboy smile. _If RDJ perfected one thing it was Tony Stark’s ‘Fuck-You-You’ll-Never-Break-Me’ mask_, Elia muses with a smile. Strong emphasis on the word _mask_ though.

At least before the Avengers decided to go back in time to retrieve the Infinity Stones in _Endgame_, Tony looked genuinely happy with his little daughter Morgan and wifey Pepper. But then that utterly gut-wrenching scene flooded Elia’s mind. Tony, looking worn out and exhausted after using the Stones to defeat Thanos and his army. Trying to convey so much to Pepper with his eyes and Pepper reassuring him that both she and little Morgan would be okay. That Tony could rest at long last.

_You may not be a threat but you better _stop_ pretending to be a hero._

_Screw you, Rogers,_ Elia seethes silently, her knuckles turning white as her grip tightens on the steering wheel. The irony that Captain America was once her favorite Marvel character has her scoffing in disdain. _God, I was so naive back then._

She had idolized Steve Rogers up until _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_. But after that film something began to nag at the back of her mind about his character. A man out of time that had lost far too much is offered the last remaining piece of his life from the 40s in the form of one Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Mind you, at that point in time there was absolutely no trace of the Barnes he knew. The persona of the Winter Soldier that Hydra had sculpted to serve their purpose was the one on the screen throughout that movie. After _The Winter Soldier_, every minute Rogers spent on screen only served to amplify that nagging feeling at the back of her mind. After Elia watched _Captain America: Civil War_, she simply had no sympathy nor empathy left for Rogers at all. The scene in the abandoned Siberian Hydra bunker came to the forefront of her mind. Tony’s broken expression as he watches the video of the Winter Soldier slaughtering Howard and Maria Stark. Rogers looking on impassively with Barnes barely holding it together in the background. Then Rogers had the nerve to deny that he knew about it to Tony’s face. It was only after Tony called his bluff that he came out and admitted it. _How pathetic and cowardly can you be to hide something like that from a man that provided you with everything you could have ever wanted and asked for absolutely nothing in return?_

The following fight between Rogers, Barnes, and Tony had been brutal to watch. Rogers kneeling above Tony and slamming the shield into the armor’s chest plate had sent her adrenaline through the roof. Elia remembers the way she had been gripping the arm rests of her chair. If the Arc Reactor had still been embedded in Tony’s chest, Rogers would have killed him. Then Rogers abandoned Tony in a powerless suit with no clear way to call for back-up. Tony must have been sent spiraling into a full-blown panic attack after the super soldier duo had left.

_Who was the last person to betray Tony by focusing on the Arc Reactor? Oh, that’s right, Obadiah Stane, _Elia grits her teeth then flinches from the sudden burst of pain behind her eyes.

“Ugh, thinking about all of this is giving me a migraine and what good is it even doing me? It’s not like I can change any of it,” Elianna grumbles to herself.

Reaching over the passenger seat, she fishes out her bottle of Excedrin and takes one of the pills. She turns the key into the ignition and heads for the intersection out of the theater parking lot. As the light turns green, she pulls out into the intersection, only to notice the red sports car to her right that had failed to stop at the light, hurtling right for her. She gasps aloud, slamming both feet on the brakes. A thundering crash sounds in her ears but she is only aware of it for a split second before the world goes dark.

…

Weightless. Light. Vast. Endless space. Trillions of stars, galaxies, and planets were slowly spinning around her. Elia’s eyelids flutter rapidly as she tries to make sense of her surroundings.

“What is this? Am I dead?” she asks aloud.

_Yes, child. At least, in your world you are_, a deep ethereal voice seems to respond from all around her.

Elia spins abruptly from side to side, “Who’s there? Who are you? Where is this place?”

A bright azure blue light appears before her, pulsing softly as if to calm her.

_Peace, young one. I wish you no harm. You are between the world of the living and the dead. I… had help intercepting your soul before it could journey on to its final resting place._

Elia squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head, utterly baffled, “What? Why?”

_We need your help, Elianna. You possess the knowledge to defeat a threat that has plagued many other universes. In fact, you already know who I’m talking about. In your universe, he is the most formidable enemy the Avengers ever faced._

Elia thinks back to the film she'd only just walked out of. She scoffs in disbelief, “No. That’s impossible. Those movies are just fictional stories. They’re not actually real.”

_Remember what HE told the heroes he planned to do? After the heroes brought back all life that had been eradicated, Thanos came to take the Infinity Stones once again and use them to create a universe where no one would remember what he had done. The universe you lived in is one in which he succeeded, the only difference is that the population wasn’t reduced by half._

“But how is that possible? His plan…his self-proclaimed purpose was always to bring balance by decimating half of all life in a given universe. How could he have created a universe where his plan was only half-successful?”

_Because the Infinity Stones have a will of their own, Elianna. And we have had enough with the Mad Titan and his delusions. You have been chosen to go back to where we believe it really all began. YOU can change things because we will be there to help you._

After the azure light says this, five other orbs of light appear behind it. A green light, a purple light, a yellow light, an orange light, and a red light.

The pieces start falling into place for her, “You're the Space Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones,” she murmurs breathlessly as she nods towards the others, mind still boggled.

The six orbs of light in front of her pulse simultaneously.

The Space Stone bobs once, as if in affirmation. _There is no time to waste, we will send you back. _

The green light, the Time Stone, she realizes, drifts forward to bob next to the Space Stone. 

“Where exactly is the beginning? What did you mean you’ll be there to help?”

_I’m afraid that’s all I can answer for you right now, Elianna. You will understand the rest in time._

Both the Space Stone and the Time Stone begin to shine brighter and brighter. Then in an instant the world around her falls away again, but this time in a flash of blinding blue-green light.


	2. Ho Yinsen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! Now officially thrown into the MCU, Elia meets the man that motivates Tony Stark to eventually transform into Iron Man.
> 
> Ho Yinsen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or any of the characters featured in this story.

Elia’s eyes open to near darkness. The walls around her are made of stone and whatever she is laying on must be made of stone too, given the screaming pain in her back. Pushing herself up onto her elbows, she winces at the throbbing pain behind her eyes_. My head feels like it’s about to split in two_, she thinks miserably.

Now sitting up, she blinks a few more times to adjust to the lack of light in the…room?

“How are you feeling?” a lilting male accent asks from behind her.

Elia jumps violently, “Jeez! You trying to give me a heart attack?”

She turns around and stares, mouth gaping. The man looks to be in his early-fifties and is of middle eastern descent. He has glasses perched on the edge of his nose and is staring at her with furrowed eyebrows. She recognizes this man.

Ho Yinsen.

_ Its real. I’ve really been…_, she thinks in a stupor of rising panic.

“Miss? Are you alright?” Yinsen asks, rising from his seat at the worktable across the room.

Shaking herself out of her hysteria, she responds shakily, “Just sore. Where am I?”

Yinsen sits on a small stool next to her cot and asks, “Well, what is the last thing you remember? You have been muttering some interesting things in your sleep.”

Elia flushes in embarrassment but looks back at Yinsen, “Like what?”

“Something about ‘it’s not real’ and something about 'stone' or 'stones'. We are surrounded by stone, but you have been unconscious since they brought you here,” Yinsen answers as he takes off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

“They?”

“Our gracious hosts, the Ten Rings,” Yinsen huffs in disgust.

Elia swallows. _Shit. Double shit. This is bad._

“We’re in Afghanistan,” Elia breathes in horror.

Yinsen drops his hand from his face and stares at her in surprise, “You are familiar with the Ten Rings?”

“Something like that,” she answers as she swings her legs over the side of the cot and stands. She takes a closer look around the room…the cell.

_ This is a prison, you are not free here. Tread carefully_, she thinks.

There are various worktables set up with tools and other assorted junk laid out on them. There are three cots in the cell and there is a set of metal double doors about twenty feet in front of her. Security cameras are placed in each corner of the room.

“How long have I been here?”

“They hauled you in here about thirty-six hours ago. They said they found you unconscious in the desert and told me to tend to your wounds and sunburn. They probably plan to use you for ransom,” Yinsen explained grimly. Elia looks down at her arms and sure enough, her skin is red but has already begun to show signs of peeling. There are small but thin cuts on her arms as well.

_Well, that is a sight I didn't miss_, she muses in disgust. She then realizes she has yet to answer the question.

“No one is looking for me, so I doubt it,” Elia sighs out heavily. She turns back to Yinsen and holds out her hand.

“I’m sorry, I have been so rude. My name is Elianna Myers. You can call me Elia for short.”

Yinsen smiles softly and grasps her hand, shaking it firmly, “Ho Yinsen. Nice to meet you, Miss Elia.”

“Nice to meet you, Yinsen.”

Yinsen sits her down and explains a few more things to her about the Ten Rings, some that involve details she had forgotten. The Ten Rings were led by a particularly ruthless man called Raza. Elia has a vague recollection of a bald, middle eastern man in his mid to late thirties. At the end of their talk, Elia finally feels the true weight of what had happened to her. Through the intervention of the Infinity Stones, Elia had been sent across universes. A universe where the MCU storyline was real. The fact that the Infinity Stones themselves were real made her mind boggle.

Slowly shaking her head, she tells Yinsen she is exhausted and needs to sleep. She stumbles back to her cot and falls into it on her side and is asleep in moments.

…

_ The world around her was slightly blurred but she could still tell that she was in the back of a vehicle of some kind. There was a man and a woman in the front seats, both wearing army gear. Then there were two more men in the back with her. The one to her left is also wearing army gear. However, the man on her right is wearing a suit, with sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose and a glass of scotch held in his left hand. _

_ Tony Stark._

_ The four in the vehicle are talking and laughing merrily, but Elia knows how this will end. Sure enough, as Tony and the man to her left lean towards each other to pose for a picture, the vehicle in front of theirs erupts into a ball of flames._

_ The three army personnel in their vehicle each get out to try to combat the gunfire bombarding them and are relentlessly brought down, one by one. Next to her, Tony climbs out of the vehicle and Elia follows. They both take shelter behind a small outcrop of rock and Tony whips out his cell phone, frantically dialing a number._

_ There is a high whistling whine and then a small object lands to the right of them. Zeroing in on it, Elia reads _Stark Industries_ on what she realizes is a small missile. Tony must understand at the same time she does because he stumbles back with a frightened yell as it explodes. _

_ Suddenly, the scenery around her changes to a vibrant, azure blue. The voice of the Space Stone echoes around her, _Remember, Elianna. You must help him. This is where it all begins.

…

A loud clang rudely wakes Elia from her sleep. _Was that a dream? Or was I actually there?_

Yinsen, who had been sleeping in the cot beside her, quickly shoots to his feet. He turns to her and gestures to his left, “Do as I do. Say nothing. Stand beside me. Put your hands behind your head.”

Elia complies, knowing the best thing to ensure her survival is to do as Yinsen instructed. Across the room, a small opening in one of the metal doors reveals the face of a member of the Ten Rings. He shouts something to Yinsen in what Elia guesses is Arabic. Yinsen responds calmly to the demand. _Must come from practice_, Elia thinks as she glowers at the doors.

The doors then open abruptly, and two terrorists drag a hooded, unconscious man over to the cots and drop him before turning back to the other occupants of the room. The one who had shouted at Yinsen begins explaining something, gesturing to the two of them and then back to the man they had dropped on the cot Elia had been sleeping on.

“They have brought…,” Yinsen pauses in his translation as his eyes widen in recognition and horror. Elia stares and waits for him to finish.

“They say they attacked a military convoy that was transporting Tony Stark back to Bagram Air Base after a weapons demonstration. He was in the blast radius of a shrapnel missile. They want me to tend to his wounds and you are to help me.”

The two terrorists back away from the cot but remain in room, watching them intensely. Yinsen ignores them and tells her to follow him to Tony’s side.

“Okay, I have no medical experience. Zero. I don’t even know how to perform CPR. So, how do I help exactly?” Elia asks as she wrings her hands nervously.

Yinsen removes the hood from Tony’s head, “I will perform the surgery. I need you to go to the worktable behind you and bring me that white medical kit.”

Elia does as he says. Once she has brought it to him, Yinsen cuts open the shirt Tony was wearing with a pair of scissors from the kit. With the shirt now open, Elia sees several small cuts that are actually rather deep once she takes a closer look. She asks Yinsen what they are.

“These are the wounds were the shrapnel is located. I will try to get out as much as I can, but most of these wounds are too close to his heart for me to retrieve. I will begin now. Miss Elia, go back to that worktable. You will see a circular metal object, it is an electromagnet. On the floor by the chair is a car battery. Bring both to me, I will need them later.”

Even though she already knew why Yinsen needed these items, she needed to avoid suspicion by playing dumb. So, she shoots him a questioning look, but Yinsen snaps, “No time for questions, just do as I say.”

Yinsen continued with the surgical procedure. Elia brought him whatever he asked for. At the beginning, Tony had jolted awake and began screaming in agony. They needed to sedate him because he was thrashing around so wildly, not that Elia blamed him. After Yinsen had extracted what shrapnel he could, he pulled out a scalpel and carved a round outline in Tony’s sternum to house the electromagnet. It was at this point Elia had to turn away, the gruesome sight making her nauseous. She feared if she continued to observe the operation, she might have passed out.

Hours later, Yinsen finishes wrapping gauze around Tony’s chest and looks at her, utterly spent.

“You handled that very well, Miss Elia. Are you alright?” he asks as he walks over to a small bucket filled with water to wash away the blood on his hands. The two Ten Rings terrorists nodded to one another and leave, seeing that the operation was over.

“Not really. I’m just trying to roll with the punches. Proud of myself that I didn’t faint though,” she says, cracking a small smile.

It was at that moment her legs gave out and she fell to her knees next to the cot. Her elbows resting on the edge, she buries her face in her hands and begins to sob. She didn’t care about the security cameras watching her breakdown. She didn’t care about the blood staining her own hands. She didn’t even acknowledge the pitying look Yinsen was sending her way. She was exhausted, stressed, and terrified and she just needed a good cry to get it out of her system.

Lifting her head, she looks over Tony through tear-filled eyes. She observes the bandages around his chest then the two cables leading from the electromagnet to the car battery on the table beside her. It was one thing to watch all of this happen on screen in a theater thinking it was nothing more than fiction. Now, it was something else entirely to experience it firsthand and to understand that this was the new reality.

Looking back to an unconscious Tony, she makes a silent vow, _I will help you get out here. And I will see to it that your story is different this time around._


	3. The Arc Reactor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, we're finally getting somewhere. My plan is to really drive home what happened in Afghanistan. That's why I'm dedicating so much time to it. Tony is faced with the reality of his legacy. Yinsen, Elia, and Tony begin to warm to each other.
> 
> Beware the frying pan goop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or any of the characters featured in this story.

Following Tony’s operation, Elia fell asleep right there next to his cot. When she woke, she didn’t feel rejuvenated; just wrung out, lost, and afraid. Brushing her hair from her face and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she looks over at Yinsen. He’s bent over the worktable, inspecting the shrapnel shards he’d managed to remove during the surgery.

Yinsen suddenly looks up and seeing that she is awake, smiles softly at her. He stands from his seat at the worktable and stumbles over to the cot to ask how she is feeling. Elia studies the dark circles under Yinsen’s eyes and asks if he had gotten any rest himself.

He tells her that he’s been monitoring both Tony and herself all night. Elia feels a brief flash of chagrin. Yinsen had performed the bulk of the surgery and she had just passed out afterwards. She tells Yinsen to get some sleep and that she would continue to watch over Tony. Yinsen thanks her and instructs her to pay special attention to his breathing. _If you notice any irregularities, wake me immediately._

That conversation had taken place 18 hours ago. As of yet, Tony hasn’t regained consciousness. Fortunately, his breathing has been stable the entire time she’s been keeping vigil over him.

Unfortunately, the long hours of observation while Yinsen rests behind her has left her alone in her thoughts once again. She couldn’t ignore the glaring fact that all three occupants of the room were being watched through the security cameras. At. All. Times. Scenarios and questions were running through her mind.

_Now that we’ve saved Tony, when will _they_ come back? _

_They will demand he make the missile. He is going to be tortured._

_If we get back to the U.S., how am I going to help Tony against Obadiah?_

_If they make it back to the U.S., what exactly is she going to do then?_

_What exactly is going to be the same and what will be different now that I’m here?_

Elia lets out a loud, frustrated sigh. Looking down at the still sleeping Tony, she decides the only thing to do is to take baby steps.

_First, we have to get the hell out of here,_ she reminds herself. _I’ll worry about how to deal with Stane after that._

\---

When Tony finally wakes, it is in a startled jump of flailing limbs. Elia stands and backs away from the cot so he can get his bearings. Yinsen is shaving over by the fire pit. He had woken up just a half hour ago. She stands beside him as they watch Tony pull the long thin breathing tube from his nose. Tony, turning on his side to reach for the pitcher of water next to his cot, accidentally pulls on the cable attaching the electromagnet in his chest to the car battery on the table behind him.

Elia winces in sympathy as Tony turns and places his hand on said car battery.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Yinsen states calmly from her right.

Tony’s eyes flit back over to them before he uses both of his hands to rip the gauze around his chest to shreds and see with his own two eyes the truth of what has happened. He begins to hyperventilate, his hands clenched into fists and shaking, his eyes bugging out of his sockets.

Elia approaches him slowly, hands held out in front of her to show him that she means no harm. He tracks her with his eyes as she kneels at his side. She places her hands on his and moves them away from his chest. He is still breathing heavily, but it looks like Tony hadn’t irritated the area around the electromagnet.

“Steady now, we’re not gonna hurt you,” she speaks calmly, evenly, trying to bring him down from his panic.

She wedges her arm under his shoulders and helps him sit up. Yinsen comes over and nods his head towards the fire pit, silently telling her that he would take over. He has brought a few clothing items from his own cot over to Tony’s and drops them off to the side.

Elia falls heavily into the chair by the fire and watches as Yinsen wraps fresh gauze around Tony’s chest. Once he’s finished, he steps back from Tony and walks over to her.

“I will make us all something to eat,” he says simply while grabbing a frying pan and pouring some suspicious looking goop from a can into it. Elia can feel her lips curling in disgust. Yinsen catches the look on her face and admonishes her.

“Beggars cannot be choosers, Miss Elia,” he tells her sternly while stirring the goop, “Especially not here.”

Tony has put on a sweatshirt from the small pile of clothes Yinsen had left out for him. He has also grabbed a small mirror from the side table. He is holding it in front of him, analyzing the electromagnet with a severe expression on his face.

“What the hell did you do to me?” Tony asked in a hoarse, broken whisper.

“What I did?” Yinsen pauses in his stirring. “What I did is to save your life. I removed all the shrapnel I could, but there is a lot left, and it’s headed into your atrial septum. Here, want to see?”

Yinsen sets the frying pan down beside the fire and picks up the small glass jar from his worktable. “I have a souvenir. Take a look.”

Yinsen then tosses it to Tony, who catches it without taking his eyes off the older man. He brings it up to his eyes to examine it closely.

“I’ve seen many wounds like that in my village. We call them the walking dead because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs.”

Tony slowly lowers the hand holding the glass jar and looks back up at Yinsen, “What is this?”

“That is an electromagnet, and as you can see, its hooked up to a car battery, that is what is keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart at the moment.” Yinsen goes back to stirring the pan full of goop.

Tony pulls the zipper of sweatshirt up to cover the electromagnet. He glances at her, then behind her to the cameras around the room.

“Oh, that’s right. Smile,” Yinsen says, catching his observation.

“Where are we?” he asks quietly.

Elia is about to answer, but the sliding compartment on the door behind them opens abruptly, startling all three occupants of the room. A Ten Rings terrorist shouts something in Arabic to Yinsen. Elia is immediately on her feet.

“Come on, stand up. Stand up!” He whispers to Tony, gripping his elbow to help him.

“Just do as I do. Now, come on. Put your hands up. Miss Elia, stand to my right. Stark, to my left,” he instructs while looking at the door that has opened across from them.

From the door, seven members of the Ten Rings emerge, leering at them smugly. The one in the center gives Elia an over-exaggerated once over that has her shivering in disgust.

“Those are my guns. How did they get my guns?” Tony asks them while nodding at the terrorists opposite them.

“Do you not understand me? Do as I do,” Yinsen snaps.

Apparently finished appraising her, the man in the center begins to walk towards Yinsen and Tony. He is speaking jovially in Arabic, lifting his hands in grand movements and gestures with a mask of false pleasantry on his face.

Yinsen begins to translate, “He says, ‘Welcome, Tony Stark. The most famous mass murderer in the history of America.’”

The man continues to speak while handing a picture to Yinsen, “He is honored. He wants you to build the missile…the Jericho missile from your demonstration.”

Elia peeks over Yinsen’s arm and takes a look at the picture before glancing up at Tony. His eyes are locked on the picture for a long moment before he looks back up at the Ten Rings terrorists.

He utters only two words, “I refuse.”

\---

Elia is pacing back and forth in the cell. Yinsen is sitting in the chair by the fire, _thankfully he’s abandoned the idea of dinner_, and is rubbing his forehead with one hand.

After Tony’s outright refusal to build the Jericho missile for the Ten Rings, they had grabbed him and hauled him right out of the room. That had been two hours ago. Elia has a recollection of the torture Tony endured at the hands of the Ten Rings. But for the life of her, she can’t remember what methods they had employed to do so.

The door opposite them opens once more, but it isn’t Tony that walks through it. Instead the two men that had hauled him in before the surgery urge Yinsen and Elia to follow them out of the cell.

_This will be the first time since I got here that I am seeing something other than this cell._

The two prisoners are led through a labyrinth of tunnels that seems to go on forever. Finally, they come to the mouth of the cave, where Tony is standing. His hair is sopping wet and its then Elia remembers. Waterboarding. The realization leaves her rooted in place, unable to move.

Elia feels one of the men behind her shove harshly at her shoulders, nearly sending her to her knees. The three of them are led outside to see the hoard of weapons that the Ten Rings have accumulated. Every single gun, missile, container, and pallet bears the Stark Industries logo.

They come to a stop and the man from before turns to face them. Beside her, Tony’s carefully constructed mask is in place, but she can see the cracks beginning to show.

Yinsen translates, “He wants to know what you think of all this.”

Tony mumbles despondently, “I think you’ve got a lot of my weapons.”

The man circles them, leaning into her as he speaks. Tony, seeing this, grabs her left shoulder and drags her back away from the man. “He says they have everything you need to build the Jericho missile. He wants you to make the list of materials. He says for you to start working immediately, and when you’re done, he will set you free.”

The man extends his hand to Tony, like sealing a business contract. Removing his right hand from her shoulder, Tony takes the man’s hand and says, “No, he won’t.”

Yinsen nods at Tony's response, “No, he won’t.”

Elia peers above the man’s head and sees a cluster of men standing atop an outcrop of rock. There is a bald man among them, hands clasped in front of him. He is staring down at them, observing the scene.

_Raza_, Elia realizes, _the leader of the Ten Rings_.

\---

After being shown the truth of his legacy, Tony had taken to ignoring them. He currently sat in front of the fire pit, with a mug of tea in his hand. And the glower of dislike he’d given the mug for not being filled with coffee made her expression for the frying pan goop look like a smile.

Yinsen must have decided enough was enough, because he stands up from his seat next to her and strides over to Tony.

Taking a seat to his right, Yinsen says, “I’m sure they’re looking for you, Stark. But they will never find you in these mountains. Look, what you just saw, that is your legacy, Stark. Your life’s work, in the hands of those murderers. Is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance from the great Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it?”

“Why should I do anything? They’re going to kill me, you, her, either way,” Tony replies while nodding in her direction. “And if they don’t, I’ll be dead in a week anyways.”

Elia hates the carefree way Tony says that. Like it doesn’t matter if he dies, like nothing matters anymore. But she takes a breath and remembers who exactly it is she’s with at the moment. This is the man that was always ready for death. The wormhole in New York City, Ultron’s meteor, Thanos’ snap, and when he finally succumbs to it by snapping his own fingers, encased in the Infinity Gauntlet, and destroys an alien army that would have brought about the end of the Earth.

She needs to remind him that there is something worth living for. Right here, right now. But what? Then it hits her.

Elia stands and approaches Tony’s left, “I think, deep down, you’re not one to lay down and die so easily. Don’t you have people, or at the very least one person, to get back to? Someone who’s probably worried out of their mind for you right now?”

What she says seems to strike a cord within him because he looks up her with an expression she’d seen before. Its an expression reserved for a select few in his life; Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, and Peter Parker.

Yinsen is nodding with a sad look on his, probably thinking of his family, “This is a very important week for you Mr. Stark. It would be a shame to waste it.”

\---

The cell is bustling with activity. Ten Rings men are carrying a wide array of tools, tables, equipment, and weapons. Elia is running back and forth, helping organize various items on tables and shelves while listening to Tony direct the group in the background. She knows that the talk between the three of them had given Tony a little spark of something. Resolve, hope, she wasn't sure, but she was grateful. Whatever it was had gotten him back on his feet, after all.

_Hopefully, this results in an Arc Reactor_, she thinks as she grabs a small stack of containers from a Ten Rings man and carries it over to the worktable Tony and Yinsen are standing at.

_Then after the Arc Reactor, Iron Man._

\---

They’ve been at it for three days. Disassembling weapons during the waking hours for certain components that are beginning to look like the Arc Reactor, if the sketches by Tony’s bedside are any indicator.

Tony and Yinsen are working while Elia is organizing the list of materials Tony has handed her earlier in the morning.

“How many languages do you speak?” Tony asks, not looking away from the warhead in front of him.

“A lot. But apparently, not enough for this place. They speak Arabic, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Mongolian, Farsi, Russian.”

“Who are these people?” Tony asks as he pulls out the inner mechanism from the missile.

“They are your loyal customers, sir. They call themselves the Ten Rings.”

Tony walks over to another missile and its Elia that speaks up this time, fed up with her list, “You know, we might get things done faster if you told us what exactly it is you’re doing?”

Tony hums noncommittally. Using a pair of pliers, he pulls a small strip of metal out of the mechanism and tosses the larger part of it over his shoulder, “We don’t need this.”

Yinsen takes a closer look at the little strip of metal Tony is examining, “What is that?”

“This is Palladium. 0.15 grams. We need at least 1.6, so why don’t the two of you help me break down the other 11?”

At the mention of Palladium, Elia stiffens and closes her eyes. A bright azure blue flashes behind her eyelids for a moment. When she opens them again, Tony and Yinsen are staring at her.

“What the hell?”

“You saw that too?”

Elia’s brow furrows. “What?”

The two men are still gaping at her, saying nothing. “You guys, what’s the matter?”

“It looked like your eyes were glowing blue just now,” Yinsen says. His voice is shaking slightly.

Elia glances behind her at the security cameras. She hopes whatever Tony and Yinsen saw wasn’t bright enough to startle their warden and his lackeys. She been entertaining a theory for a while now, but the idea of it contradicts what she knows of the MCU timeline.

“You must’ve been seeing things,” Elia says flatly.

“I saw it too, kid,” Tony says from his seat at the table to her right.

“You must’ve been seeing things,” she says again, letting them know that this conversation was over. “And don’t call me kid.”

“Whatever you say. If I don’t call you kid, what do I call you?” Tony asks, letting the subject drop for the moment.

“Elianna Myers, Elia for short,” she replies, holding out her hand.

“Nice to meet you, Elia,” Tony replies, shaking her hand. He gestures to the third occupant of the room, “And you?”

“Ho Yinsen,” the two men shake hands as well.

Elia smiles softly, and jolts when she realizes that it’s the first time she’s done so since she arrived in this timeline. She looks at Yinsen for a moment longer.

_Maybe I can save him this time._

\---

Its day six and they are reaching the climax the production schedule. Good thing too, because Tony has been breathing heavier than normal since they woke up this morning. Th effects of the shrapnel barbs are starting to become more prominent. But if all goes well, they should finish the Arc Reactor before lunch.

Yinsen is pouring molten metal into a mold Tony had crafted last night.

“Careful. Careful, we only get one shot at this,” Tony says anxiously, carrying the car battery over his shoulder.

“Relax. I have steady hands. Why do you think you’re still alive?”

After the metal sets, Tony puts it into a small plexiglass casing. He begins soldering the casing to several wire units around it. When he is finished, he attaches a cable to what is now the Arc Reactor and slowly lifts his hands away from it. Yinsen and Elia approach from behind as the Arc Reactor flickers and glows rapidly.

“That doesn’t look like a Jericho missile,” Yinsen muses.

“That’s because it’s a miniaturized Arc Reactor. I got a big one powering my factory at home. This should be able to keep the shrapnel out of my heart.”

“But what could it generate?”

“If my math is right, and it always is, three gigajoules per second.” Tony taps the side of the reactor as he says this.

Yinsen’s eyes widen, “That could run your heart for 50 lifetimes.”

Tony smirks, “Yeah. Or something really big for 15 minutes.”

Elia speaks up this time, leaning one hip against the table, “Which begs the question, what’s next, Mr. Stark?”


	4. Raza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elia comes to a realization about the episode with her glowing blue eyes. Raza and Obadiah are creeps. Tony, Elia, and Yinsen continue to get to know one another while working on a way to escape from the Ten Rings. Enter: Iron Man Armor - Mark I
> 
> Trigger Warning: Threats of abuse/rape are mentioned. No details, just mentioned.
> 
> P.S. Elianna cusses. Get over it.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or any of the characters featured in this story.

Tony told them they would have to wait until morning to find out what he had planned next. He picked up the Arc Reactor, apparently looking to replace the electromagnet himself, but Yinsen quickly intervened. He insisted on being the one to replace the electromagnet with the Arc Reactor._ I am a doctor, I have the steadiest hands. _Not long after that, Elia volunteered to be first on watch while Tony and Yinsen got some rest. The three had come to an unspoken mutual decision that it would be best to start taking watch shifts in case their captors decided to come and pay them a visit. Besides, this would give Elia a much needed opportunity to think.

Looking over at Yinsen and Tony, seeing they were sound asleep, she let her mind drift to the episode she'd had a few days prior. The guys had said her eyes were glowing. Glowing blue. All at once, the messages, the warnings from the Infinity Stones came rushing back to her.

_We will be there to help you. You must help him. This is where it all begins._

Elia clamps her eyes shut, clutches her head with both hands and growls in frustration. "Dammit, what does it mean?!"

Eyes glowing blue. Blue is a color she associates with the Space Stone. Elia remembers the vision she'd had about the convoy with Tony being attacked. It felt like she was **actually** there. There was only one logical conclusion she could come to. _When I was brought over to this universe, one of the Infinity Stones must have merged with me._

The realization makes her eyes snap wide open and her hands drop to her sides. _But its not possible, Infinity Stones aren't meant to merge with mortals. I remember _**that**_ much from Thor: The Dark World._

Jane Foster possessed by the Reality Stone. Watching it slowly sap the energy and life out of her. Elia holds her trembling arms out in front of her. She quickly crosses them and clamps them to her sides.

_No, they wouldn't send me here only to kill me by draining me of my energy. Take a breath and think logically for a second._

But no matter how much she tried to think about her new circumstances rationally, the doubt continued to linger in the periphery of her thoughts for the rest of her watch.

\---

That morning as they ate their breakfast, Tony presents them with his escape plan. He lays out overlapping sheets of translucent paper, showing the detailed specs for the Mark I Iron Man Armor.

He simply says, "This is how we get out."

Yinsen and Elia exchange a hopeful look and nod back to Tony. They got to work. It would only be a matter of time before Raza decides to pay them a personal visit.

\---

Elia is in the process of assisting Tony with the faceplate when she feels a surge of power and is pulled from the cell.

_She lands in what looks like a break area for the Ten Rings terrorists. She won't call them soldiers, she won't call them men. They aren't worthy of being called anything other than terrorists._

_Looking down at herself, she notices she is glowing a translucent silver-blue. The edges of her vision are blurry, just like in convoy attack. Looking back up, she sees a dark silhouette at the mouth of the tunnel-like room. He is only outlined by faint light emanating from a smart phone held up to the figure's ear. She knows who it is though when he begins to speak. Raza.  
_

_"Yes, we have Stark. He is working. Though whether or not he is actually building the Jericho missile remains to be seen. We have the doctor and a young woman we found in the desert assisting him."_

_Elia walks closer to the figure to better hear the other end of the conversation. The voice is rough, older, and feels like a snake coiling painfully tight around her body._

_"Tony might need a little nudge here and there to make him cooperative. I trust in your methods to make him compliant. He'll build the missile for you. You said there is a young woman? Use her. Threaten her. Do with her what you will. Maybe that will be the push Tony needs to cooperate."  
_

_Obadiah Stane. It all comes back to her. The man Tony thought of as family has been selling weapons under the table to the Ten Rings, HYDRA, and God knows who else for years under Tony's nose. He was the one that tipped the Ten Rings off to Tony's convoy route. Now he was threatening her to get Tony to build the missile for Raza._

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck_, she thinks frantically. _

_Suddenly, Elia feels the surge of power again and finds herself waking in her body back in the cell._

Tony and Yinsen are kneeling over her, both with identical panic-stricken expressions on their faces.

"Miss Elia, are you alright?!" Yinsen asks shakily, helping her to her feet. She nods absently and Tony clenches his fists at his sides.

"You just collapsed, El. One second you were standing over my shoulder, the next you're lying unconscious on the ground." Tony exclaims.

"I'm okay, it was just a dizzy spell." She couldn't tell them the truth. One, they wouldn't believe her. Two, she needed to keep this on the down low until she knew more about her circumstances and had more control over them. If she ever obtains control over them. The Infinity Stones had been unhelpfully silent since her realization last night.

Tony looks like he'd love nothing more than to call her out on her BS. _Please don't ask me. I don't have any answers for you._

He must somehow hear her silent plea, because his shoulders slump and he simply closes his eyes, turns his back on her and goes back to work.

Elia tries not to feel so painfully grateful.

\---

The very next day, Raza decides to pay them a visit. They are in the middle of working on the chestplate when the little sliding window in the door opens and they hear the shouts from the Ten Rings terrorists. Tony, Elia, and Yinsen immediately stand and put their hands behind their heads. This time it isn't a couple of guards and a talking head confronting them. This is the real deal, Raza, with a full contingent of lackeys at his back, ready to strike at the smallest hint of a wrong move. Dramatization and intimidation at its finest. Pussies.

Raza turns to appraise each of them. He barely spares a glance at Yinsen. His eyes linger on her, lewdly and blatantly displaying exactly what he'd love to do to her. But he shifts his focus to Tony before she could start spewing venom at him. He cracks a wry smile.

"Relax," he says to Tony like they're friends.

Tony drops his hands to his sides, but doesn't break his gaze. Raza saunters up to Tony and using two of his fingers, pushes the shirt he's wearing out of the way to take a better look at the Arc Reactor in Tony's chest. Elia doesn't react outwardly, but her heart jumps to her throat.

"The bow and arrow once was the pinnacle of weapons technology," Raza drops his hand and walks over to the worktable beside Yinsen, absently running his fingers over pieces of equipment. "It allowed the great Genghis Khan to rule from the Pacific to the Ukraine. An empire twice the size of Alexander the Great and four times the size of the Roman Empire."

He walks back to stand next to Tony, picking up the the mismatched specs for Mark I, "But today, whoever holds the latest Stark weapons rules these lands."

Tony looks back at Yinsen, but Yinsen gestures for Tony to remain silent.

"And soon," Raza drops the specs back on the table, "it will be my turn."

He comes to stand in front of Tony and glowers at him. He asks Yinsen something in Arabic and Yinsen stumbles to answer back. Elia furrows her brows in confusion. Raza paces slowly over to him, his voice growing sharper and taut.

He orders something to his men and two of them grab Yinsen while another two grab her, shoving them both to their knees. Raza picks up a burning hot coal with one of their tools and turns back to the three prisoners.

"You think I'm a fool?" he asks in English. "I'll get the truth."

This time he addresses Tony, "Now you have a choice. You will tell me what it is you're really building. Or I will feed this coal to the good doctor. Then if your defiance holds and you still refuse to tell me, I will hand the young woman over to the care of my men. They will rip her apart, and I will make you watch every second of it."

Elia's stomach lurches at all of the implications that come with those words.

"What do you want? A delivery date? We are working on the Jericho but its a slower assembly process without the proper equipment."

Raza gazes at him silently, contemplating if this is the truth or not. The white hot coal hovers between Yinsen and Elia. 

"I need them. They're good assistants," Tony says evenly.

Raza drops the coal between the two prisoners on their knees before him. His men release Yinsen and Elia. Raza marches up to Tony one last time.

"You have until tomorrow to assemble my missile." 


End file.
